BRANDO REJECTED OSCAR
MNN. Mar. 2, 2014. In the 1960s one of the top actors in Hollywood was involved with the burgeoning American Indian Movement AIM. He was constantly seeking knowledge about our true history and rights. He invited Mohawk activist at the time, Kahentinetha Horn, to visit him at his home in Beverly Hills. A limousine drove her to his lavish heavily guarded hilltop home. Nourishing food was served at the poolside. He was an honest man and she felt comfortable with him. He wanted to learn everything he could about how the colonizers treat the Indigenous people of Great Turtle Island. He learned about the role of the Kanionkehaka in helping to spread the Great Law of Peace to everybody in the world.
“I got an offer I couldn’t refuse” to stand up for the Indians!
Later both were asked frequently by the press about their discrete relationship. He was in his forties and she was in her twenties. Neither kissed nor told.
The Indian Fish Wars were going on at the time in Puget Sound. The US government was violating the 1855 fishing rights treaty. The Indigenous People were removed from their lands but kept these rights and constantly resisted. Marlon Brando, Buffy Sainte Marie and Dick Gregory joined the resistance. In March 1964 Brando was arrested with members of the Puyallup Nation for taking two steelhead trout. That was his awakening.
In effect, Don Corleone said, “They stand up for their family because they’re real men.”
In 1973 Brando received an Oscar for his role in the Godfather”. He refused it and sent an Indigenous women to deliver a message for him. Later he told talk show host, Dick Cavett, why he did it.
“The motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing him as savage, hostile and evil. It’s hard enough for children to grow up in this world. When Indian children … see their race depicted as they are in films, their minds become injured in ways we can never know.”
Once again the millionaires-patting-each-other-on-the-back show [the Oscars] is on. We wonder who the next Marlon Brando will be for the American Indian!
As Jim Morrison laments: Ride the snake, ride the snake/To the lake, the ancient lake, baby/The snake is long, seven miles/Ride the snake/…he’s old, and his skin is cold.. Jim Morrison. “The End”.
MNN Mohawk Nation News kahentinetha2@yahoo.com For more news, books, workshops, to donate and sign up for MNN newsletters, go towww.mohawknationnews.com More stories at MNN Archives. Address: Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L thahoketoteh@hotmail.com for original Mohawk music visit thahoketoteh.ws